Posted on 10/30/2023 4:41:07 AM PDT by marktwain
Progressive historians have used their position to justify unfettered government power for decades. Professor Saul Cornell has long taken the position the Second Amendment does not mean what it says. As an example of his rhetoric, he claims government policies encouraging gun ownership are proof of the legitimacy of government authority to ban guns. Laws and regulations encouraging people to exercise their right to arms are not a persuasive argument to show they had the authority to ban the exercise of the right. From Professor Saul Cornell:
Without government direction there would have been no body of Minutemen to muster on the town greens at Lexington and Concord. If the Founders had imbibed the strong gun rights ideology that drives today’s gun debate we would all be drinking tea and singing, “God save our gracious Queen.”
Professor Cornell submitted his thoughts in an amicus brief to Judge Benitez in the Miller v Becerra case. Judge Benitez did his job and objectively considered what Professor Cornell wrote. He found many factual errors. Judge Benitez found that Professor Cornell claimed, at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment, Americans were:
“apprehensive about ‘the proliferation of especially dangerous weapons and the societal harms they caused’. In support he cites McDonald. McDonald says no such thing”
Benitez finds Professor Cornell’s claims regulating firearms and gunpower was at the very core of police power. Cornell cites three cases. The problem is they are about storing gunpowder safely as a fire hazard and say almost nothing about firearms. Professor Cornell cites a case about the potential to regulate a militia and discounts a case
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Which has been true of “progressive historians” since the beginning.
Seeing all lies through the lens of advancing progressive politics.
Thanks for posting. If you go to the link from the Leftist Prof. it will make you sick of his logic or actually the lack of logic.
Saul Cornell is what’s called a deep thinker when coming up with his theories. In his case a “deep thinker” is one whose theories favor the “Deep State”.
BFL Study.
What the government gives, it can take away.
Our FFs were brilliant in their writing to make it clear that government is not the grantor of our rights. Our rights come from our Creator. Government is the guarantor or those rights and has no authority to take them without due cause and process.
The purpose is to provide justification for progressive policies. Once a policy is determined, then a historian can work to find ways to justify the policy.
Policies come and go with the current fads.
Disarming the population is an enduring progressive policy, because progressives hold the common man in contempt, and believe the state should decide all things important.
The state has to have a monopoly on power in order to implement state policies.
The PM,completely befuddled,looks at Sir Humphrey as shouts "EPISTEMOLOGICAL?". Classic scene in a great series.
"Progressives" love to use words like that when trying to justify their depraved attitudes. But somehow "shall not be infringed" is a complete mystery to them.
Even if you buy the theory that it was government that encouraged firearms proliferation in Colonial America, it does not negate the fact that the vast number of firearms during that time were privately purchased, privately owned. The gunsmiths who made them were private sector businesses as were the mill that supplied gunpowder and the mines that supplied lead or iron for ammunition.
One of the problems early on in the American Revolution was that the American Army carried a vast array of different type and caliber firearms. After about 1777 they attempted to standardize caliber to .69 as French muskets of that size arrived to supply the Army. Riflemen of the Continental Line who had brought their rifles from home exchanged them for muskets BUT they were given receipts for their rifles (and matching bullet molds if applicable) so that once their service was over they could get their PERSONALLY OWNED rifles back in a second exchange.
Rifles were more expensive than muskets, as well.
Professor Cornell is engaged in classic “a priori” (before the facts) justification of his claim. That is, a highly selective citation of “facts” to support a predetermined position.
In this case, Professor Cornell (and others) believe private ownership of firearms must be banned or, at least, highly restricted and any argument (no matter how specious) that produces such an outcome is acceptable.
By contrast, “a posteriori “ (after the facts) reasoning is a bit more respectful of historical experience in formulating its arguments and claims. The “scientific method” is classic a posteriori reasoning: theory, observation, synthesis, revised/new theory.
Unfortunately, history reveals that there is plenty of corporate-sponsored research that conveniently produced results favorable to the bill payer. However, this practice has now moved into the social sciences where supposed “social scientists” are now producing highly politicized “research” to support their woke predetermined outcomes/positions.
Fortunately, the very absurdity of their conclusions and claims usually invalidates their research and findings immediately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori
“Without government direction there would have been no body of Minutemen to muster on the town greens at Lexington and Concord.”
http://www.lerctr.org/~transit/healy/crap.wav
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What government would Cornell be referring to? The British government was there to disarm the Minutemen.
I dunno where Saul Cornell came from, but my ancestors were there in the Revolution.
They had long guns. In Western North Carolina those were common. One of my ancestors willed his long gun to his first son, and of course we are still trying to find that gun...but no one in the “government” made anybody buy it or make it. Did that all on their own.
Varmints and Injuns out in them thar hills, ya know. And Redcoats.
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